Hi,

I've been teaching for nearly 5 years now and up till now have been very laid-back and flexible and have never seen the need for contracts... until NOW!!! This term has been been particularly bad for some reason. I've had several 'no shows' and 'no phone call to explain the absence', one last minute cancellation due to pupil being 'too tired' and two who phoned an hour or so AFTER their lessons claiming to have forgotten.

Great!! Some of these pay in advance and some pay as they go so obviously I'm not going to be paid for the 'flexible' option.

So, as the title suggests I'm thinking of doing contracts in the new year - I'm totally fed up with being walked all over. It just makes me feel like I'm not being taken seriously.

How many of you do issue contracts and did you lose any pupils by doing so?

Thanks!!!!

hi there,
I'm in the same situation! I've been teaching for 5 years in London and have always been easy going and understanding to all those 'child is ill', 'school exams' but i must say in the past years, they have come up with more excuses to cancel, and some are just plain 'walking all over!'

Theory exams was due (this was end October) and trying to get the child to do more past year exam papers, all geared up for extra lesson that week and what happens?
the student calls me up, not the mum, the student calls me up and says 'Have to cancel today cos my mum forgot to buy more past year papers. ok bye!'

what would a normal reaction be to that? seeing that the theory exam was in a weeks time?

I later found out that it wasnt because of that, it was because they had last minute tickets to a musical in the west end, as I teach the cousin as well, and the mum had the courtesy to call me to cancel and to explain the situation. I was not happy sure cos of the last minute cancellation but at least she was honest!

So I too, have had enough of all these nonsense! and you will find that the ones whom you have tried to help most in the past, have forgotten about your good deed and comes back with 'not pleased with the new contract, therefore will not sign. we are cancelling lessons.' and that wasn't even through a phone call, that was all through the magic of 'texting'.

so the understanding parents are really nice! but the 2 faced ones, best be gone!
so yes, CONTRACT is very good as it will protect the teacher from all those 'unfortunate' excuses or in my case, no courtesty to call, but to text instead!

I was in the same situation as you last year so since September I have issued all existing and new pupils with contracts. No one objected to anything as it was all pretty much what I'd always said.

So far, touch wood, I've survived without contracts.

I've avoided them in the past because my own children have been growing up and I've been conscious that just occasionally I may have an emergency and may have to cancel at short notice. Now I've kind of got past that stage, but I've an elderly mother who may cause me to have to cancel in an emergency.

So I've appreciated the flexibility that not having a contract seems to have, and I have been really fortunate with my pupils and their parents who seem to have a sense of responsibility towards their lessons. I even had one parent who wanted to give me some money for a notice period that I don't have - she tried really hard - several emails were exchanged before I managed to convince her that she owed me nothing!

Me, too. No problems at all with payment or people missing lessons without warning.
Guess we're lucky!

I introduced contracts in September this year, after writing to all my pupils over the summer holidays. Attendance has improved considerably (valuing the lessons, now they have paid for them?) - I drew the line when I realised that I was losing 20% of my lessons through last minute cancellations. One pupil decided not to carry on, but had other reasons for stopping anyway. Otherwise, I've had no objections.

I recently started lessons on a new instrument and my teacher sent me a contract after the first lesson. Parents are used to paying for most activities a term at a time in advance, with no refunds unless the teacher cancels, so why should music lessons be any different.

There are plenty of model contracts out there eg Musician's Union, EPTA, ISM. Go for it!

I use contracts and advanced payment. I have found that it makes a big difference throughout the month; when people miss lessons they have already paid so I don't miss out.

Though part of the contract states that if they are going away or need time off lessons they must tell me before the day I send out invoices or they still have to pay. Today however (when payments are due) I had one man say that he was taking next month off. When I said I require notice as stated in the contract that he signed he just said "yeah...but it's christmas." I've had similar situations with a few students this week. But what can I do? If I become insistent they will get annoyed and probably not come back. I can't afford to lose every student who tries to screw me around like this. How you do you enforce the terms stated in your contract?

Could you explain why the policy on missed lessons wasn't an integral part of your contract?

David, do you mind me asking what is your policy on missed lessons?

Kim

I use contracts and have found they work really well.

Tasha

The contract can include that if the teacher has to cancel at short notice (which would only happen in an emergency) then the money for that lesson would be refunded, or the lesson taken at a different time.
However, if the pupil cancels at short notice, they still have to pay for the lesson.

I have actually had an adult student in the past jokingly said to me, 'when you the teacher cancel, you should be paying me the money if u want me to pay you for last minute cancellation!' although she was laughing, bout I knew she wanted me to cave in. all these people just trying to take the mick!

Yes I've had that too! Some people are really perplexing....

Well, just to update you - I've chickened out issuing contracts as a reflex action....!!!

For now!

I've decided I needed a cooling off period. I like the idea of having them but the trouble is I'm quite laid back really and so long as people don't take the mickey out of me I'm happy to remain that way!

But I did slightly reprimand one parent this evening and verbally inform them of my policy for late cancellations. They took it well....


Thanks for all your replies. I will consider this issue very carefully over the christmas period!!

.

Glad you feel better now!
Some students really take the ****, don't they? I don't have the problem of late payments or making lessons up, because I take payment at the end of each lesson. OK, the odd one will ring me because they are skint at the end of the month, and can they pay twice next week? It's rare, and they always do. Late cancellations pay double the following lesson. I couldn't be bothered chasing block payments as so many of my friends do.

In France whenever you sign anything you have to write in front of your signature "lu et approuvé" (read and approved). I always read the whole thing, however long, before signing and have lost count of the number of times that people have said to me "just because you're writing "read" doesn't mean you have to read it."

I don't have a contract but I do have a cancellation policy that everyone agrees to. I use the same system as Mezzo1974 where students wanting a regular lesson slot commit to 10 lessons in a quarter. They pay 3 equal monthly amounts. I've been using this system since April last year and it has meant I've got a more stable income from teaching, even if I don't earn a lot. But I do have a problem with people paying on time. They are supposed to pay within the first week of each month. I usually have to send around email reminders which I don't mind doing, but even then some people take ages to pay. I was so desperate for money last month that, after being told by two different students that they'd pay me by bank transfer and then didn't, I had to contact them to ask that they bring cash to the lesson. I really don't like insisting on how people pay me, but they had said they'd arrange the money and then didn't so I felt that I was within my rights.

I had a problem with one student before Christmas who had taken it upon themselves to decide that they weren't going to pay me in January because they weren't having a lesson from the middle of December until the 3rd week of January. They had received 10 lessons in the October - December quarter, and missing the first two weeks in January is fine as there are enough weeks left to make 10 lessons. When I tried to say that they would still need to pay me in January if they still planned to continue with regular lessons, they said they didn't know how that worked out. This was a student who had been learning with me for a few months so it's not like the system was new to them. Anyway I had to go through and explain the system and point out that nothing has changed and they agreed they would pay me. I found it quite bizarre and was also a little annoyed that they had decided they weren't going to pay me for January without actually mentioning it - it was only because I contacted them about payment that they mentioned it to me.

I do still get people cancelling but not as much as before, although I've got one adult who cancels quite frequently, despite paying in advance. I try to remain quite flexible and there is room for students to plan for up to 3 weeks off (depending on whether I'm having a week off too). I usually give everyone one free cancellation, depending on how much notice they give. For example I was phoned last week by my Saturday morning student the night before to say she'd been in a minor crash and had whiplash. Obviously I wasn't going to charge for that, so we rescheduled to yesterday morning (she normally has fortnightly lessons). Got in my car ready to set off and as I was reversing I heard the phone go, so pulled back up and answered. It was the same student saying she couldn't get into her car as it was iced over. My car required the windows to be scraped etc and I couldn't open my boot up, but I could open my doors. Anyway she said she wasn't gong to be able to make it and obviously offered to pay for this. I feel guilty about it but this is the 3rd lesson that has been cancelled so far this quarter, I haven't seen her since Christmas, and she did leave it until the last minute to call me so it will have to count as a lesson. I try to be flexible but if I keep letting off cancelled lessons from counting as one of the 10 then I will end up being out of pocket because there are some students who once they meet their 10 will pay for extra lessons to fill the rest of the quarter. The idea of basing it on 10 lessons is it gives some students the chance to budget for and plan when to have their lessons.

Lucid

EDIT: I am happy for students to let me know if they have difficulty paying and need to slightly delay the payment, but most of the time I am never told if this is the case or not.

Well, I would if I could, but there are just no spare slots to do that. So therefore I don't charge if it's impossible for a student to get to me. I couldn't have it on my conscience if they had an accident on the way.

I wish I could (because that would also keep things more flexible for myself), but I tried this for over a year and had to give up. The endless discussions whether or not a late cancellation has to be paid for, and some even blatantly refusing to give me the money (needless to say I then blatantly refused to teach them) were a bit tiring and in the end too much.
Maybe it is just the area I live in, I sometimes really don't know. Money is quite tight up here, the overall level of education is not the highest either - but strangely the people I seem to have the most problems with are not the ones on a tight budget. I think they are just plain rude and have no manners, you can possibly get that anywhere

I really don't mind being lenient and use my discretion with people who usually don't cause problems. You get to know your students after a while, and the people who really never miss a lesson and then cancel on the same day for a reason not in their hands are strangely (or maybe not so strangely) always the ones who immediately offer to pay for the missed lesson.
But the ones who constantly try it on are really getting on my nerves. As someone said: There's no point having a contract if you don't enforce it, and I do, but they just don't give a s###, and the problem repeats itself on a constant basis. The only way to really solve this problem is sacking them for breach of contract, and I am getting close to this one with one or two people.

As for being desperate for money, Lucid, I'll open another thread for this, because you (or others) might want to look into Tax Credits if that hasn't already happened ...

Well fortunately I've got a part time job so I don't qualify for benefits or tax credits. But I still don't really earn a decent combined wage. Luckily my boyfriend works full time and his job and my part time salaried job can cover expenses between them. But January was a lean month for us as we'd used some of our initial wages for Christmas etc. and then had some extra things we had to spend money on anyway, which is why I became reliant on my January teaching money as it was needed for our food budget. I try not to rely on my teaching money, but when I only just earn enough between both of my jobs to cover half of our household expenses (not even including debt repayment) then it does become an issue when people are late paying.

Lucid

The fact that you are working part-time alone actually does not mean you don't qualify for tax credits (which are calculated in a completely different way from other benefits). It really depends, but you can check your eligibility online:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBen...edits/DG_073802

If your combined income is over a certain threshold (at the moment something over £17.000 for a couple and just under £13.000 for a single person I think), that's of course a different matter ...

Hi Mezzo. Yes sorry I should have explained that I meant that my part time job combined with my boyfriend's salary means we earn too much to qualify. We earn well over £17000 annually as a couple, but I would qualify as a single person.

Lucid

No contract as yet. I have only about 5 pupils; it's a side-line alongside my full time (non-music teaching) job. There are normally very few problems, but with the busy-ness of adolescents' lives these days, they sometimes double-book me and have a rather cavalier attitude to cancelling. Most of the time I try to be flexible with them providing they warn me in advance (preferably one week) that they can't make next week's slot. It's usually possible to fit them in on another occasion, around my normal grammar school teaching hours.

It works both ways; they have to work round my difficulties ( of e.g. having parent consultation meetings outside my usual teaching hours or taking my wife off for a special 50th celebration weekend etc.). If it's a pupil who is not taking examinations, I'll allow them to skip the lesson and not pay; I'll often be too tired anyway and regard it as a welcome reprieve on rare occasions!

With the best will in the world even the most obliging of parents will forget to pay bills One family owes me £105 for example for exam fees this past month. I know the family quite well and they have done me favours in the past. Still, I'm not a charity and will have to remind them this week via the children's notebooks.

LR